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House Lights Up is a podcast by Allie Imlach, and presented by the Arts Wellbeing Collective. Each episode features honest conversations with performing arts workers about the challenges of forging a career in the arts, and strategies for overcoming them.
House Lights Up was produced with the insights, expertise, experience and generous contributions of Greta Bradman, Rachel Dunham, Gabriel Edwards, Matt Heyward, Luke Hunter, Zoe Knighton, and Rob Tremlett.
Allie has an honours degree in Professional Communication from Monash University. As Program Producer and On-Air Presenter for 88.3 Southern FM, Allie developed her skills in interview, storytelling, editing and crafting narratives. Allie joined the Arts Centre Melbourne team in 2012, and is currently in an Advisor role with the Risk and Compliance team.
Greta is a psychologist, ABC Classic-FM presenter, columnist, soprano, Decca Classics Artist, and the founder of EirisInc. Since commencing her professional career in 2010 primarily as a concert classical singer, Greta has presented more than 1000 performances with orchestras, and her 2015 début album for Decca Classics My Hero (c. Richard Bonynge; English Chamber Orchestra) received five-star reviews and topped the classical and classical crossover ARIA charts for several months. Her album Home (c. Luke Dollman; Adelaide Symphony Orchestra) was released in 2018 with similar ARIA charts success.
Greta is an Arts Centre Melbourne Trustee, sits on the advisory boards of the Australian Mental Health Prize and the Arts Wellbeing Collective; she is patron of St. Matthew’s Music Foundation, an Ambassador of Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide and is on faculty at Alain de Botton’s The School of Life.
With an extraordinary singing voice and stage presence, Rachel was in much demand as a jazz singer, touring as lead vocalist in the Queensland Youth Big Band, working in studios for EMI and BMG, singing in TV commercials, music videos and fronting 9-piece Sydney show band Cool Weazel.
She studied with renowned voice coach Don Greydon who helped her expand her already formidable range, and develop more power and control over her voice. Based in New Zealand for several years, Rachel devised and starred in a highly successful children’s theatre production Gypsy Gina. During her time there, Rachel fronted sell-out jazz shows at the Wellington International Arts Festival, opened for Ray Charles during his tour and performed to 30,000 people at the Millennium Celebrations in Wellington.
In 2011 Rachel was cast in New Theatricals’ production of Rock of Ages, where she received a five-star review in the Melbourne Age for her performance of “Justice Charlier”. Rachel continues to perform in stage musicals, most recently in Harvest Rain’s production of Hairspray as “Motormouth Maybelle”.
Gabriel Edwards is an Associate Partner at Fisher Leadership and former Managing Director of Engaging People, a successful People Strategy Consultancy established in 2005. She is also a trained Counsellor and the founder of Breathing Space, a unique counselling and facilitation service for business leaders and performing artists, established in January 2017.
Gabriel has worked with individuals, teams and whole organisations to engage employees, develop healthy and productive teams, create new brands, improve wellbeing and transform cultures. Gabriel identifies a consistent theme to her methodology and that is to approach all challenges, interventions and strategies from the inside out. She has worked with World Vision Australia, RMIT, Rio Tinto, Flight Centre, World Directories (Europe), Seek, REA Group, VicRoads, VicSuper, QLD Main Roads, Port of Brisbane Authority, Southern Health, Circus Oz and a growing number of CEOs and Performing Artists as individual counselling clients.
Gabriel is an experienced Board Director, a member of Women on Boards and a member of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia.
Matt most recently appeared in Billy Elliot (Louise Withers and Associates), Sweeney Todd (TEG Life Like Company), and the Australian premiere of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder for The Production Company. Prior to this he performed in the 60th Anniversary Production of My Fair Lady directed by Dame Julie Andrews (Opera Australia/GFO). He made his professional debut in the original Australian production of MAMMA MIA! The Musical (Dainty Consolidated). Other original cast appearances include The Producers (GFO), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (TPC), Monty Python’s Spamalot (Louise Withers and Associates) and The Addams Family (New Theatricals).
Other theatre credits include Mary Poppins (Disney/Cameron Mackintosh), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Victorian Theatre Company), The Boy From Oz (TPC), Eurobeat-Almost Eurovision (GNG), Damn Yankees (TPC), Mame (TPC), The Boyfriend (TPC) and Sugar-Some Like It Hot (TPC). He also recently appeared in the acclaimed re-imagining of Sir Cameron Mackintosh’s Les Misérables (Michael Cassel Group).
Matt is one of the associate producers of Out From Under, a concert series aimed at raising mental health awareness in the entertainment industry, and also works as a content advisor for Arts Centre Melbourne’s Arts Wellbeing Collective.
Luke is currently the Musical Director for the Australian production of Come From Away.
Luke was the Musical Director for the Australian production of Jersey Boys, for which he received both the Helpmann and Green Room Awards for Best Musical Direction. He co-arranged the Australian Anthem for the boys to perform at the AFL Grand Final.
Other Musical Direction credits include Kinky Boots (Helpmann award nomination), The Addams Family (newtheatricals), Dedications starring John O’Hara for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Gale Edwards’ acclaimed production of The Rocky Horror Show, The Sound of Music and the Australian tour and Singapore seasons of Grease for the Gordon Frost Organisation, a concert version of Beauty and the Beast for the Rob Guest Endowment and Melbourne Zoo, Shout! (regional tent tour), Oh! What a Night, Leader of the Pack (Green Room Award for best musical direction), Falsettos (Blackbird productions), Up written by Eddie Perfect and 42nd Street for the Victorian College of the Arts, Todd McKenney Live at the 2006 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Floorplay in Atlantic City and Burn the Floor in Las Vegas. In 2003, he performed and co-wrote the cabaret Get Here for the York Theatre Company in New York with fellow Australians Simon Gleeson, Natalie O’Donnell and Deone Zanotto.
Luke’s original collection of songs The Book of Luke premiered at The New Capers in Melbourne in March, 2007.
Luke completed a Bachelor of Performing Arts Degree from Monash University in 1997, and began his career onstage. He appeared as Schlomo Metzenbaum in Fame the Musical, both in Australia and overseas, and in the casts of the original Australian productions of Shout! and Oh! What a Night.
Luke is the co-creator of the iPhone App Warm Me Up! which provides vocal warm-ups to singers worldwide.
Zoe is a founding member of Flinders Quartet, one of Australia’s finest chamber ensembles. Flinders Quartet has toured internationally, nationally and appears regularly at Australian festivals as well as their own celebrated subscription series. The group has commissioned many works, been nominated for an ARIA for best classical album and continues to be a champion of Australian Chamber Music. “Flinders Quartet…whose players give such care and unanimity of musical thought to Australian Chamber Music” Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald.
After starting cello at the age of 9 with Jill Kahans, and graduating from the University of Melbourne with the highest mark of her year, Zoe went on to establish herself as one of the country’s most sought after cellists. Having studied with Christian Wojtowicz, Michel Strauss (Paris) Nelson Cooke, and Angela Seargeant, she is now in demand as chamber coach and teacher at various institutions. A regular panelist for major competitions, Zoe combines many facets of her career with performing.
Zoe has played numerous concertos with Melbourne Orchestras and with pianist Amir Farid, made an impressive debut at the Melbourne Recital Centre to great critical acclaim in 2009. Their partnership continues with recordings for ABC, concerts throughout Australia and the release of 5 CDs on the MOVE label. She has been praised for her “thrilling tenor sound” (Limelight magazine) “sublime phrasing” and “many great technical demands carried off with ease.” Their partnership will be reignited in 2020 with performances throughout Australia and New York.
Her three other titles on the MOVE label include the complete suites for solo cello by J.S Bach.
“Knighton has produced a reading of great artistic integrity. “ Gordon Kerry
“She radiates confidence in her work and participates with personality and no little finesse. Well worth hearing for the pleasure given through this player’s familiar warmth and honesty of musical character.” Clive O’Connell
Recent projects have included expanding Flinders Quartet’s regional engagement by becoming Artistic Patrons of the John Noble Quartet Program and initiating a secondary school residency program that incorporates the study of Shostakovich quartets with other areas of curriculum.
As an artist, Mantra has covered a huge amount of ground in the last eight years. One of Australia’s most popular rappers, he is an Obese Records alumnus with two albums under his belt, an outstanding amount of airplay and, above all, the kind of respect that earned him the label ‘your favourite rapper’s favourite rapper’.
His first album, 2010’s Power Of The Spoken, was incendiary. A success with fans and critics across the country, Power Of The Spoken was thematically diverse and creative, threaded together with a relentless Hip-Hop soul. Heavily requested on radio, Power Of The Spoken found itself in the coveted triple j Feature Album spot, which helped catapult Mantra to legions of new fans.
Following up in 2011, Mantra’s second album, Speaking Volumes, was a significant artistic step forward and a huge personal statement. Led by first single Got Me Wrong, which became triple j’s most requested song the week of its release, Speaking Volumes maintained Mantra’s lofty position with his fans, his peers and the media.
He has established himself as a conscious and active voice in the local music scene, and is also involved as a mentor and facilitator on many youth and community arts projects.
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Published in Collaboration with The Arts Wellbeing Collective
The Arts Wellbeing Collective is an Arts Centre Melbourne initiative that comprises a consortium of arts and cultural organisations whose shared vision is to effect better mental health and wellbeing for performing arts workers. Our objectives are to: - Improve support services for performing arts workers - Collate and share information - Effect industry cultural change - Improve support networks within and between arts organisations. Our guiding principles are: - Prevention focused, promoting positive mental health and wellbeing, and raising awareness of mental health, mental health problems and the value of early intervention. - Working in partnership, ensuring a variety of partnerships state-wide and across the industry – collaboration is core to the Arts Wellbeing Collective and vital to success. - Creating systems level change, through seeking to understand and address systems, cultures and traditions that contribute to poor mental health and wellbeing in the performing arts. - Long-term thinking, prioritising resources and initiatives that have capacity for long-lasting impact, scalability and transferability. - Knowledge creation and dissemination, working with experts and industry leaders to find, share, create and translate the best available information, tailored for creative contexts. - Encouraging innovation, Arts Centre Melbourne is always learning – we do not have all the answers. We will test, trial, evaluate, and share useful findings with energy and authenticity, and continue to be rigorously planned, strategically responsive and thoughtfully adaptable.
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